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Ch. 2: The Hammer of Wrath
Back to Arheled The stars looked down on Winsted, and Winsted looked at them. The streets were dark and gray, a pleasant obscurity, without the orange and cold blue of the lights that man erected to shut out the host of heaven and surround himself with day. It was a strange sight to see the streets and homes asleep and quiet, and the cold clear stars looking down as they had been wont to do. People abroad late were only shadows, invisible in the darkness. Dark stood the Nine Hills, save for gleams here and there were candles burned or generators growled. It had a look, suddenly, of a place warped back in time, to days when neither gas nor power burned; the old houses and the spired churches, grey under the stars, filling the horseshoe valley and flowing up its’ walls. The figure walked under the stars, and stars were neath her feet. The Long Lake lay, a still dark mirror, unlit by any lights except the stars, the cold hills rising black around it upon every side. You could almost believe, in that dark greyness, that there were no houses, only the ancient trees crowding grimly to the water, watching jealously all things, lest the Rider come upon them and they be rooted to resist him. The figure smiled to herself a little sadly, gleaming faintly, as a pale ghost of the forms that once had walked upon these same forgotten waters, and the stars wavered under her feet as she trod upon the water. Like a thing long left behind, last of her kind, outstaying her day and knowing now sorrow where before she had known only the careless heatless chill mirth and laughter of the Stars, Sophia walked upon the Lake, the last living Star, and mourned her folk. The power returned to Winsted on Wednesday night, though outlying areas were still using generators on past Sunday. Travel decided to drive everyone home in an actual car; she was getting a little homesick for earthbound means of transport. There was an atmosphere of somber farewell among the six Children; they had been thrown together for so long that saying goodbye and going back to normal almost felt weird. Grandmother Lane baked a cake. As only five could fit in Travel’s car, Ronnie said he’d be last, “only you should teleport me if you want to save on gas.” “No, really, Ronnie, it’s no trouble.” “You people have no gas-consciousness.” “Spoken by the guy who drives maybe three times a year.” “You see?!” They stood around a little awkwardly on the drive. Wild had unmade all traces of the battle of Lane House, even regenerating the trees and shrubs. Of course the snow had then proceeded to snap limbs and tree tops right and left. Everyone felt an urge to procrastinate. Even Lara was chatty and conversational. Finally Ronnie began saying his farewells, as he was staying behind. Bell and Brooke hugged him. Lara did not, but she and Ronnie exchanged a long somber look, full of the consciousness of shared pain. Forest shook hands a little self-consciously. Then they all piled into Travel’s car and drove off. It was cooler than it had been yesterday; as if the interlude of warmth had been solely due to those being the Three Days of the Dead: all holy dead, all canonized saints, and all dead period. Ronnie shivered a little as the shadow of a tree branch crept onto him, and moved into the sun. “You’ll work on what I figured out?” Hunter Light said. His car was in the driveway; he’d been driving the Three Elders around using Mr. Lane’s car, until Mr. Lane and him went and picked up his. “I’ve got to be leaving for the College. With the outage we are going to be so behind in our paperwork we might not even open this week.” “You drew it up neatly enough.” said Ronnie. “Thanks for those explanatory notes: I’m not much on math.” “Yes, I remembered that much about you.” said Hunter dryly. “Now that their Lord stands incarnate I don’t think the dragons are going to be out for hostages, or Wild would have left them here. And I think we are strong enough to handle them.” Ronnie studied the paper after Hunter had left. At the top the octogram was drawn carefully, the eight points lettered The list of numbers, the letters they equated, and the sequence of Grandmother Lane’s dance came underneath. Then the totals of the hammers. The queer symbol the sequence formed, plus the runes detected in it and their values, formed a column. Under it were the numerical values of those letters. In a vertical list were given the various calculations: (for the list of letters:) Added: 123 Added columnar: 72,663. Divided by 6: 12113. Divided by 9: 8074 123 x 6: 738 123 x 9: 1107 Runic values added: 54 Added columnar: 2016 “And absolutely none of these make sense.” he muttered. But doubtless that was intentional: an artifact this important would be hedged with all sorts of false trails. He would bike up Platt Hill Rd first. Travel came back an hour or two later. She and Ronnie didn’t talk much on the way down to Burrville. Once she remarked, “I kind of wish I’d never brought Carlee that day.” “So it was doomed.” said Ronnie. “Hey, I thought Catholics didn’t believe in doom.” “Oh yes we do.” said Ronnie. “We just have nicer names for it. Will of God, Divine Providence…of course, doom exists in a strange balance with free will, in that an event Doomed to happen, comes about by the weaving of hundreds of little free choices. Like you deciding to bring her that day. Or her deciding to say Yes to me. Or me to ask.” “I’m glad you’re not too cut up about it.” “Grieving will come in its’ time.” said Ronnie grimly. “It’s best not inflicted on others. I walk alone. So it is doomed. I will weep alone as well.” She dropped him off, giving him a warm hug and a sympathetic smile. There trees down here, too, he observed glumly, including one on his roof. He hadn’t remembered either to lock his door or to take his keys, and the place was locked. A yellow Crime Scene tape was around the house and a notice on the door told him that the premises were sealed up, pending investigation. With a sigh he set about breaking in. The increase in his power was having some very interesting side effects. Just as Forest now could see in the dark, so Ronnie found that if he really focused, like when reading distant signs or microscopic print, he could actually see through solid objects. Thus he was able to see the new burglar alarm the court had installed, and the little control panel had red lights. If he broke in, the cops would be here. Red light glowed in Ronnie’s eyes. Red light glowed in Ronnie’s hands. Obeying a strange and powerful impulse, he turned his hands so that the palms were flat to the horizon. The light in his eyes grew to a flame. '' “I am the Hill of the Road.” he said. Red light leaped from his hands. Like the guy in Fullmetal Alchemist he slammed his palms against the earth. It quivered at his call. The foundation broke, raggedly, making a hole big enough to crawl through. After he did, it sealed back up. He walked through the house. Cops had labeled everything, but nothing was taken away and they hadn’t found his stashed savings. About half the preserves and applesauces had popped their seals, and re-cooking and re-canning everything took him two days. The landlord came over the first night and Ronnie did some fast talking, and the next hour or so was wasted trying to explain things to a pair of deadpan-faced cops, who looked like they believed in nothing but the food on their plate, and even that only after cross-examining the cook. But they accepted his explanation of a group outing that arrived suddenly, though he had to give them the phone numbers of Grandmother Lane and Hunter Light before they would; and they gave him the suspended expression cops have when they know you’re guilty but can’t find any proof, and headed off. Saturday was cold and windy, but sunny. Around noon Ronnie was finally done with chores and ready to set off. He smiled despite himself at the fresh cool air and strong blue sky; even sorrow could not quench him long. Platt Hill, he knew well, was not of the Nine Hills. It rose, conical and lump-like, above the south end of Highland Lake. The road that bore its’ name snaked up and down over the tumbled flanks of the great highland of Winchester Heights, branching off Boyd St near Crystal Lake and heading south. Ronnie reached it by the long climb up Mountain Rd to the devastated Third Bay. The road had been repaired and opened just before the storm, and fresh yellow lumber showed from the cottages being rebuilt. Then he climbed up Sucker Brook Rd a long way, the deserted valley behind the flood dike lying on his left, until he joined Platt Hill Rd just after its’ confluence with Boyd. Following the house numbers downward, he soon discovered they bore an inverse relationship to those on Boyd: they were still around 360 when Platt Hill Rd ended, and the Boyd numbers rose from there. No 123. He looped across the road to bag a Bud Lite can and headed back up Platt Hill Rd. It was a long climb. Several times the road dipped sharply down into a valley, but on the main it climbed, a broken, rocky bluff on the right and a steep fall on the left. The beeches here were all golden, darkening to bronze at the edges, and glowing with the sun behind them. Dark green hemlock mantled the stones. Most of the snow was gone, save what lay piled at the sides or lurked white on sunless slopes. At long last he mounted up into the highlands. A microwave relay tower rose like a square spiderweb far above the tall dark spruce. It was open, fields and big lawns of rich houses amid rows and patches of wood. He passed a brown sign with yellow letters at one of these, announcing Platt Hill State Park. He frowned: the Annals had spoken darkly about how the state acquired this hill, by robbery or little better, or perhaps part of the long policy of persecution of the Indian reservations. People’s Forest in Barkhamsted was a prime example: the dwellers there not allowed to men their own homes, nor pass them on to heirs, that a lovely state park might come into being once they all had moved away. He lowered his eyes and pedalled on. The house numbers were still in the 400s when he passed the Little Red Schoolhouse, a small square hut with slab-plank siding showing the wavy edges of logs from which it had been cut, in an angle where the road from Burr Pond slanted in and joined Platt Hill Rd under golden oaks. Soon after, Platt itself came to an end, at South End Rd from Winchester Center. Old farms and great rolling fields opened out, a mottled quilt of yellow-tan hay and white snow. Struck by a sudden idea, Ronnie turned right and headed uphill, homely maples closing overhead. His suspicions were confirmed: the house numbers were in the 120s and dropping. The road crested a slow rise and emerged from the woods. And left the living world. Cloven by the road was a cemetery, remote, on the roof of the world, great ancient spruce standing mournful around it, robed in drooping dark green. White snow and green grass, blue sky and stained white graves: it had a solemn, almost awful feel, as if he had left the world and wandered alone across some unfathomable place. The stone wall that ringed it crossed the road like a gate; only a chain link fence barred the middle of the divided cemetery from the road. As he went farther the graves on the right grew more tilted, and ancient, worn sandstone mingling with the eroded marble. The dark spruces stooped closer. Then another gatelike breach in the stone wall, and he descended into another world. That was what it felt like. A sad tunnel of bare maple roofed the road as it plunged into a valley, and as Ronnie coasted by he saw on his right in the golden beeches a gabled brown house. The mailbox on the left bore in gold numerals the number he had sought: 123. He arrested his career as soon as he was able and turned back to survey the house. It stood almost under one corner of the cemetery, mantled by the young beeches. At the bottom of the valley lay a cold small pond, open and wintry, its’ coasts weedy and littered with white bleached rocks, and honking geese; sad woods of grey and grim pine cloaked the shores. It had a desolate look. A dirt road of smooth gravel branched off, curving under the cemetery hill to meet the road from Burr Pond at the schoolhouse: Hollow Road. On the farther hill, higher on the main road, was a great deserted barn. Ronnie biked up to look at it closer. Forsaken fields, all brush and young woods, rolled away to the left of the road. The pond was hidden on the right by a hill. A great concrete silo towered over the road. The rambling wings of the barn were draped in bittersweet, unpainted boards falling loose and opening great skeletal gaps in the sides. The corrugated metal was peeling off the roof. Goldenrod, withered to brown tufts fluffy with seed, hissed in the cold wind. The bright sun made it even more dismal. The inhabited, civilised farmhouse a little up the road seemed almost a mirage. And just beyond the silo was a burying ground. A sad open rectangle of snow-matted grass, it was surrounded by a massive old wall of quarried square stones, fallen in a few places. Old trees overhung it on the right, maples still bearing a yellow fringe of clinging leaves on the outer edge, and young trees had advanced inside the wall. Great masses of bittersweet and poison ivy littered the wall-top. A huge obelisk dominated the burying-ground near the gateway; plain square blocks of streaked whiteish marble with deep dark grooves between, upon a three-stepped base, it stood almost 20 feet high. About twenty gravestones, all marble, several fallen, stood in three rows nearby. Toward the rear the graveyard sloped downward, and several copses of grey-black young maples stood there; though merely bare, they looked dead. With the green matted grass and the patchy snow, and the stained black-streaked pale grey of both graves and monument, it looked rainswept even under the staring cold brightness of early forenoon sun. And graven in raised letters on the obelisk was one word: HINSDALE “H.” muttered Ronnie. “Both graveyards are important, I feel; but how? What does all this mean?” He biked back across the valley to the spruce graveyard. Disregarding the newer western half, he turned to the eastern, narrow, the end shrouded by the huge spruce but still open, sloping up toward the back where it was lit by strong sun. Slowly he paced about among the grey and dull red stones, scanning names, looking at dates. Here, as he had at the Hinsdale place, he murmered a prayer for the dead before he walked among their graves. It was common courtesy, after all. The number 123 he took to mean the corner of the graveyard adjacent to the brown house. The stone wall climbed up from the road, making a corner almost above the house, then running on in a widening line relative to the road. Towards this end the stones grew so ancient that many were unshaped, uncarved, mere upright chunks of irregular stone. Among these stood a few carved sandstones, the dates in the 1770s to 90s. All dates seemed to avoid 1790, he noticed; 1793 or 91, but never 1790. At the top and back he came upon one of the queerest stones he’d ever seen. Not large, it bore in great crude block letters, chiseled with some attempt at ornament but evidently by an amateur, Behind it was a smaller footstone, bearing in the same careful but tottering letters, BENONI HILLS THIS MY HOUSE. But both Ns were backwards: “That star.” muttered Ronnie. His eyes blazed and his fists clenched. The little star between B and H had ''two points upright, one '' point down: a five-pointed star upside down like a goat’s head. The symbol of black magic. The sign of Satanism. He looked around. “B and H are both in the rune-list. Here—and at Hinsdale. That octagon. Does it match this end of the graveyard?” Looking at the diagram on his paper, he then looked at Benoni’s tomb. “If this matches point B—and the row meets the stone wall at the right angle—point A would be in those vines.” Several old stones, one of mica schist on whose glittering surface no words remained, stretched leftward along the row. In the vines was an upright rock: one of the earliest graves, whose heirs couldn’t afford to hire a stone to be shipped all the way up here. “Point A.” he muttered. It was about ten feet from Benoni. Angling down the fringe of the oldest graves, he came to one small carved slab among the many markless, and the name on it was Hannah. “Point H!” he crowed. In the next area, where point G would stand, was another chunk, upright and sharp like a finger. Eyes burning, he almost didn’t notice Travel Lane appear right in front of him, and nearly plowed her over before her presence registered on his mind. “Wow, Ronnie, what the heck?” “Oh. Travel. Ah. Can you move? I’m tracing the graves.” Travel watched with a bemused expression. “Where the heck are we? I thought you’d be at your house.” “Must be urgent if Miss I-want-to-drive goes and teleports to find me.” “Well, you never answer your phone, and Grandmother Lane just realized something really weird about the figures…” “They refer to graves.” said Ronnie. “The points of the octogram. You’re standing in it. We’re quarter-mile from Platt Hill Rd’s southern end.” He excitedly explained everything he’d just discovered. Travel listened with bulging eyes. “I might as well have saved my strength.” she said dryly. “You seem to have cut Grandmother right out of the race.” “Yes, well, I was just tracing the octogram. If you don’t mind…” “No, no, go ahead. I’ll go look at that Benoni guy.” The angle towards point F took him outside the graves, but a huge old spruce just above the fence was in the right place. Peering up the slope to where Benoni stood in the warm sun, Ronnie positioned himself so he was straight in line. “Travel, can you stand right by Benoni?” he called. “Good. Yep, that’s fine.” Behind him was a clump of white birch: point E. Angling up the tombs landed him at a large stone with several names. One of them was Dennis. He soon found the footstone with the initial D on it. Point D. Point C landed him by a broken rock whose first names he could not read. From there the angle was just right to Benoni: point B. “Where is I?” he muttered. between the birch-clump and Benoni were several tall thin slabs; the tallest, and as near as he could judge the midmost, read REV. JOSHUA KNAPP. “Knapp?” Travel said. “Like Knapp Hill? But where’s the I?” “Don’t you see?!” Ronnie exclaimed. “I, J, K. The sequence implies I. The J and K are disguises. This is the middle. Points B, D, H, and I are marked.” “So that dance must be done here—or ritual, or whatever?” said Travel dubiously. “I’m positive.” said Ronnie. “But whatever is done here—it’s at Hinsdale things will happen.” He looked at the paper and crouched, frowning over it, for some time. “P and H meant Platt Hill Rd.” he said at last. “But not on it—near it. 123 lies between both cemetaries.” “What about the other numbers?” Ronnie’s eyes were gleaming an intense red. “Times and dates.” he said. “The ritual must be done—when? What time?” “But how do you--?” “1107.” said Ronnie. “This weekend. Monday, Nov. 7th. At 12:11 and 3 seconds.” “It could be Dec. 11th at 11:07.” “Not with that remainder. The 3 fits clock time.” “How do you know?” The red eyes flashed as they met hers. “Because I am Ronmond Wendtho.” “One problem, though,” he went on as if to himself. “2016. If that’s a date like the one on the Methodist milestone, it means 2010. Last year. Why would…oh my gosh. Of course. Another trap. ''What day of the week was Nov. 7th last year? It was Sunday. That means Nov. 6th this year—Sunday. Tomorrow.” “So we all have to be here, on Nov. 6th, at 12:11:3, and preform this ritual?” said Travel. “But who has to do the actual thing?” “That’s the interesting bit.” he answered. “Hunter Light is 54. I was born July 19 1980—80 and 7 right there, and if you add 8 + 0 + 7 + 4 you get 19. But up there is that 72663—I think we can disregard that, as its’ purpose was to produce 12113.” He got up. “Well, that at last is clear. Let’s get going. Since you’re here, you can make yourself useful and take me to your Grandmother’s.” “Do you think all of us are needed? And how long would it take us to walk the diagram?” “Good point.” said Ronnie. “Very well, let’s walk the course. Get your watch; mine broke in the underground battles.” “All I have is a cell phone.” “Technology addicts.” muttered Ronnie. “We should do the stamping, too.” “''No!” Ronnie roared. “Absolutely not! Whatever we do, we must not do that.” “I don’t understand.” said Travel. A cold wind disturbed the sunshine’s warmth, and she shivered. “Magic.” said Ronnie grimly. “Can’t you feel it? If we do this ritual, in any other way or at any other time than what is strictly laid down for us, we will be working black magic. We will be committing the sin of superstition.” “It does feel eerie, doing it in a cemetery.” Travel said as they made yet another retreat back to the center stone and advanced to one of the other points. “The goat’s-head star was a warning, Travel. If we fail to carry out the exact conditions, or do them at the wrong time…” “Something bad happens?” “Nothing.” said Ronnie. “That’s the whole point. '' Nothing happens at all. And that which is hidden stays so.” “This feels stupid.’ said Travel as they passed from G to A and back to G again. “This took us…how long?” said Ronnie as they made the last course. Travel checked her phone. “About 5 minutes.” Ronnie nodded. “I’ll get my bike.” he said. “Then let’s go.” Lara was rather surprised when Travel and Ronnie popped suddenly in front of her, but when Ronnie began excitedly pointing out how all the numbers were adding up, she got interested despite herself and agreed to be ready. When Travel visited the others they were surprised she hadn’t just called them, but Ronnie explained he suspected all their phones were compromised. “You’re paranoid.” “It isn’t paranoia when people really are out to get you, as the great Greg Farshtey once said.” “Whoever he is.” said Travel. “You dimwit, he’s the Bionicle writer.” exclaimed Bell, whose house they were at. Hunter was so interested in all this he actually forgot he had the door open until Mrs. Lake shouted she was getting cold. Sunday dawned with a massive, glittering frost. Every tree and blade of grass bore a mantle of silver. When the sun rose the fields sparkled like gems. Ronnie went to an early Mass. The day was bright and sunny, a little warmer than yesterday, when Travel appeared in his yard around 11 and found him waiting. By 11:30 all nine of them stood in the cemetery under the leaning ancient spruce. The air hung still but unquiet; from far around the deep moan of windy forests came faintly up to them. Ronnie pointed out the marks of the nine points, and Lara made an ice kerb connecting them. Then Ronnie and Hunter Light waited, under the clump of birches that marked point E, for 12 noon to strike. Hunter felt self-conscious, like a grown-up playing a kid’s game; Ronnie’s face was set and grim. “Time.” said Travel. Her phone said 12 noon. “Stamp twice on E.” called Grandmother Lane from the Knapp tombstone. Ronnie and Hunter stamped twice, then moved swiftly to their left to the tree that marked point F. “Back to center.” said Grandmother Lane. They walked quickly up the slope until they touched Knapp’s stone. “Now to G.” Down the hill to the finger-like rock they paced and wheeled smartly. “Up to B!” They marched slantwise up the hill until they stood at Benoni’s stone. The crooked letters shone in the warm sun. A faint breeze rustled the beech-leaves and stirred the cloaks of Arheled the Children wore. “Back to me!” They stepped downhill to her, then wheeled and made for A, the little stone amid the vines. “Back to me!” They turned, retracing their steps. “Over to D!” Out into the graves they headed, pausing at the footstone. “Stamp thrice on F!” Down to the ancient spruce they headed, put their heels in the hollow of its’ roots, and turned to face Grandmother Lane. Three times rose and fell their two right feet. “Back to me!” They walked up the hill. How much time do we have?” Ronnie called over to her. “Four minutes.” said Travel. “To A, then back to me.” said Grandmother Lane. The air all around them was stirring, slowly, as if it were thick. It seemed a little cooler. “Now to B, over to G.” Back up to Benoni, then down the shaded slope to the sharp rock. “Up to A, back to G!” They retraced their footsteps. “Over to me, finish at C!” “One minute and a half!” cried Travel. The two men walked faster as they headed toward Knapp. There they paused to touch it, and strode toward the small broken stone. Wind stirred around them, hair and cloaks lifting. “Not yet!” barked Ronnie when they were two feet away. “I feel it…we have to wait…we are five seconds early. When I say. Three. Two. Now!” Both their feet touched the broken stone. The dance was ended. The dance was danced. A quiver ran through the earth, outwards from them. With a roar the wind snarled down on the cemetery. Hair sailed wildly and cloaks billowed and flapped. Ears reddened in the cold wind. The beech leaves flashed as they fluttered wildly in the brilliant sun. The sky above was like blue ice. Sudden and violent from the hill across the valley leaped a tongue of blinding lightning; and a sharp cracking boom. “Hurry, Travel!” screamed Ronnie. “To the Hinsdale! We have exactly seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds!” “For what?” screamed Travel as she teleported them all. They appeared in the gate of the Hinsdale burying ground, facing the mammoth obelisk, and nobody needed to answer her. A whirlwind of leaves was dancing around the column. The side of it that faced the road had become a carven arch, wrought in the likeness of interwined grotesque faces, some with three eyes, some with one, wreathed with lightning. In this was a grotto, shallow and recessed, its’ wall patterned with carven jagged patterns like woven lightning. Like a bas-relief projecting partially from the wall, erect with handle downward, was a huge ornate war-hammer. “It’s part of the stone.” said Peter Midwinter as he tugged vainly at the handle. “We have to draw the symbol upon it.” said Ronnie. He advanced, a piece of red crayon in one hand. Suddenly he was no longer able to move. “Well, I hope I’m not too late for the show.” Cornello said affably as he stepped out of the air. “I’ll take that, Ronnie, thanks.” Lightning smashed down upon him, hammering his form into the ground. It struck again and again as the eyes of Peter Midwinter glared. A white cocoon of Season-power condensed around the Father of Dragons. All of them could move again. “I do not need to move for the Seasons to answer me, Dragon.” he snapped. Ronnie snatched the crayon from the grass and began to trace the symbol on the haft. Fire leaped up from the Father of Dragons. Ronnie was hurled into the air, landing full across a tombstone. It broke under him. He lay, bent over, feeling as if all his internal organs were disarranged. Only the fact that he wore the shoes of Arheled had saved him from the fire. The crayon had melted. Cornello materialized on top of the obelisk. The grass was charred, and one spruce twig was still burning, sputtering out. “How did you know?” shouted Travel. “I intercepted some emails a long time ago, little Lane.” answered Cornello. “Anything on the computer is open to me. The deductions it took you so long to figure out, were to my tremendous mind a mere five minutes’ work. I admit, I was fooled by that 2016, but when I felt the Hammer waking I knew where I had erred. So, here I am, and here you are.” “I’ll hold him.” said Lara. Her skin was blue. The grass turned yellow and dead under her feet as she stepped forward. Trees moaned and stirred, angrily, as the power that was in them of old slowly awoke: Forest’s eyes were burning with green fire. By his cold heart Lara seized the Father of Dragons; but he was ready for her, and his angelic power caught her Cold and strove against it before it could grip him, even as he kept back the power of resistance in the rousing angry trees. Ronnie Wendy forced his organs into place by sheer strength of will and staggered erect. “Cornello!” he shouted. “Picking on girls now, are you? Why don’t you fight a man?” “And you think you can stand against me?” mocked the Father of Dragons. “And do you think you can face me?” Ronnie thundered. “Look upon my eyes, and gaze into their depths!” Slowly Cornello turned his awful eyes upon Ronnie Wendy. Red fire grew in a ball of light around him. The air between them began to waver like heat waves and then to crackle. “Quickly!” screamed Travel. “We have half a minute!” Forest lifted his paintbrush and wrote upon the air. On the haft of the hammer lines appeared, as if graved by chisel: the odd triangular winged rune. The seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds ran out. The air around Ronnie was swirling inward. He was reeling, his whole will and being clinging for dear life, trying to bear down the eyes of that Father of Dragons. One hand gripped the tombstone he had broken, the other clawed, defiant, desperate in the air against him as he sank slowly to the ground. “My name is Carn’hellnar, but they knew me in Beleriand as the Dragon Glaurung. Do you think that you are Hurin, or that you are stronger than Nienor? Do you wear the Dragon-helm, or bear by your side the Black Wand? You are only a human, despite your Roaded power; I am a being of an order so far above you earthworms you cannot even behold me. Do you dare to show me what I am truly like? I knew it for long ages ere the world was begun. I knew what I was doing when I said I would not serve.” The hand of Forest fastened around the handle of the hammer of stone. Under his touch he felt it change, hot, metallic, thrumming with pent fury and a power vast beyond measuring. As the stone arch flowed shut, Forest pulled from the obelisk the Hammer of the Gods. The whirling wind grew to a vortex. Leaves roared around Cornello, an awful smile on his face as Ronnie reeled. “The wolves yammer, the winds moan, and Finrod fell before the throne.” he laughed, as Ronnie collapsed upon his face. Darkness fell upon the sky. The sunlight dimmed. In Forest’s hands the hammer quivered, outline seething like a thing not solid; he felt like he was holding for bare life to a titanic chained beast. Slowly he raised it. Lightning flamed into the sky. He swung. The obelisk flared a blinding violet-red. A tremendous crack of thunder shattered the air. Cornello hovered, rigid, in the air above the pillar, caught and held in place by the power of that blow. Tongue after tongue of unnatural, fiery orange, pure red lightning thundered into him. Words tore from Forest’s mouth, shaken with titanic rage and gigantic laughter, mingling and roaring with the thunder. '' “In forge and furnace of flaming wrath was heaviest hammer hewn and wielded!” A choking cry came from Cornello, that oldest of dragons, who deemed he had delayed them until the arch was sealed up and that terrible thing, the bane of giants, was sealed forever, unless the gods who made it should come for it in person. But his pride and malice had betrayed him, and what he thought would be easy had been far more than he expected, and great power had gone out from him; and he was exhausted, and could not face the sudden power of the Hammer come unlooked-for in full wrath. Summoning his remaining strength he tore himself free of the lightning of anger and vanished. The hands of Forest unclenched from the handle. With a clang the Hammer fell upon the stone steps. Shadow passed. The sunlight shone down in renewed warmth. Of the terrible struggle there was no sign, save for burnt and withered grass, a smoking spruce branch, and under Ronnie’s prostrate form the wreckage of a tombstone. The obelisk had a wide black streak scorched up one side, and where the Hammer struck was a blackened dent in the marble block. Forest staggered. Red fire flickered in and out of his sight, as he stubbornly fought down that tremendous power that still seemed surging like a river in his veins. “Are you all right?” said Hunter. “Drunk.” croaked Forest. Lara glanced over at him and shot a blade of blue light into him. Coldness quelled the bubbling wrath, and Forest fell back against the stone, limp but healed. “What’s wrong with Ronnie?” Travel’s cry roused him. He staggered over. The others had turned him on his back. His face was dark, as if half-strangled. The eyes were frozen open, unclosing. Sometimes a red spark flickered in them. Forest gazed upon his fallen friend for a long time, horrified. He had never seen or imagined anything like this. “What do you see?” Peter Midwinter said roughly. “Darkness.” whispered Forest. “He is in the darkness, and he walks alone. He is in the past. Walks in mountains that are broke beneath the sea, and They hunt him.” “Can we get him out?” Forest shook his head. “None of us can reach him.” Travel pushed him aside. “Then I will take him to Arheled.” The next moment she and Forest stood by the moss-encrusted cabin of planks in the circle of pines at the mouth of Indian Meadow, at the Gates of the North. It was lit with candles inside, and a pleasant bacony smell of oak wood came from the open door. Staggering, the two of them managed to carry Ronnie inside. “Let me take him.” said the Man in Brown. In his arms the fallen warrior seemed suddenly small, a lonely boy, lost and desolate in an outcast world. Arheled laid him gently on a mattress stuffed with duck feathers, of dark cloth in strange designs and colors. “What’s wrong with him?” Travel quavered. “Alas!” said Arheled, looking down at him. “It was a valiant deed that he did, indeed the only deed any of you could have done that would have held back that ancient foe in his new power. But he took on one too great for any born of Man in these latter days to endure, and he has taken a wound more grievous than any of body. He has been cast under the Shadow. His mind walks in the Mountains of Terror that long have been destroyed, and slowly he will grow farther away, until at last he dies, and walks there forever.” “Please,” said Forest, “can’t you do something?” Arheled bent over Ronnie’s face. “There is one plant that I will need, Wood of the Road: but I cannot have it, for it died out of Middle-earth in the Mighty Waters.” He lifted his head. “Paint me ''athelas!” The paintbrush of Forest burned with a weird green light as he worked. He could not merely paint such an herb. It was extinct, and hence his painting would need to be exact in the smallest detail, if he would not only paint it to life, but incarnate it with all its’ virtues inherent. Arheled showed him old drawings and illustrations drawn before the Grinding Ice, and aided him with images planted in his head, sudden and vivid. At last Forest felt he was ready, and carefully upon the table he began to paint. Color and light flowed from the tapering point, fine as the thinnest needle, of that enchanted brush, making whatsoever lines he desired and hues he needed, be those lines as fine as spider-hairs or as delicate and subtle as the faintest shades of morning sky and smoke. As he made the last stroke, his painting grew thick and rose erect out of the wood, until there stood incarnate a curious and handsome plant, with long compound leaves of a deep dark green with paler undersides upon short herbaceous stems, from the centers of which clustered small white cups of flowers. The leaves smelled strange, both sweet and pungent, and somehow incredibly wholesome; and Travel and Forest were suddenly filled with flashes of everything they most longed for, or associated with content and happiness: it soothed, and yet filled with intolerable yearning. Plucking the leaves Arheled threw them into a pot of boiling water that had not been there before, and a wholesome steam filled the tiny house. Ronnie’s staring eyes closed and he began to breathe, as if sleeping. “Is he better?” said Forest. “I have anchored him, so he will drift no farther; but if I can find him and lead him out, I do not know. I only hope he is in the right section of those Mountains.” “Why?” “Because one man did face those hills before, and won through.” said Arheled. “If Ronnie meets him, he may be able to follow in his wake.” Wind tore at Ronnie. He gritted his teeth. It was nearly dark; a sort of clinging gloom that seemed at the lashing of the harsh wind only to seethe and flow, as if it were heavy, or a solid thing. And as he stumbled among it and the thick air flowed into his mind, the unmoving rocks around him quivered and flickered in his sight, taking on shifting shapes and faces that turned his heart cold: yet when he felt them, blank were the stones, and he knew they were phantom. Yet this made them tenfold more fearsome, and he stumbled on, moving from cover to cover. Tattered rocks rose around him. A queer, thin, fetid stench like vomit and the sweat of a sick man reeked from the cold stones. And it was dry, and it was cold, and the wind blew like death. “What happens to this place when night comes?” Ronnie muttered. The sky was thick and formless; if sun there was beyond the thick gloom, he could not see it. He stood in a chasm of shattered rocks, running back into lightless depths: things moved there. He felt their eyes, even when he heard no clink of falling stone or shifting bodies; and he knew they would get him. High above were ancient broken crags, barely visible through the dark fogs; below, however, it seemed brighter. “Which way do I go?” he murmered. “I am utterly lost, and where I go I will die, no matter which way. I will go further on, and climb above these glooms.” He picked his way further along the cliff, looking for a way up. It was dimmer, he perceived, and in a sudden blind horror of fear he moved faster. He could barely see. This place was not healthy. This place was not clean. There is something in the mind that draws a firm line where its’ thoughts do not lead, a balance beyond which is the tossing upheaval of madness. This place was on the other side of the line. The solid rocks under foot and hand were unreally cold and rough, stone in a way not like stone, as if at any moment they might ooze into another shape and creep away. The shapes in the gloom did not behave like normal shapes; they had no shape, no form to them, and yet they moved, stealthily, following him. He moved his hand; he saw ten shadowy projections in the gloom moving too. His hand stopped; so did they. He moved his legs, and glanced beside him, and o horror! ten more appendages were sliding forwards too. He turned to face behind him, and saw only the shadows, and heard the howling winds in the stinking rocks; and he was cold. Shaking, he crouched over a knife-sheer ridge and picked his way down into a deep vale. In the lightless depths he heard faint shifting noises, like evil things unseen creeping softly over slimy stones. He felt their eyes upon him, and the pressing weight made him sick. He sat down, huddled together, glancing sharply around. Just a little rest. He would move on soon. He had to move on before night fell. He jumped to his feet, just in time to avoid a great hooked thorn like a stinger of some gigantic wasp, which broke on the stone, shedding a horrid trail o luminous pale venom. The creature hissed. He sprang downward, catching himself on a ledge; above him he could only see a huge dark bulk reflecting no light, in which gleamed purple no less than ten scattered eyes. Some distance away he heard a harsh cry, like that of a man whose throat is nearly dried up with thirst. It came from below, from the depths of darkness; but it was a human voice, though madness was in it. Ronnie picked his way down toward it. Darker grew it, and utterly darker. He could barely see the black rocks. Once his foot rested on something that was not a rock, something that rumbled and bubbled and turned huge and awful eyes on him; but either it missed its’ aim in the gloom or Ronnie dodged too well. He was nearly at the bottom, and to his dismay found he could still see a little too well. At the shapes that moved around him his mind felt as if he was hanging upside down, though he stood upright; as if he plunged down an endless cliff, though he stood still; recoiling with unutterable shudders from the very thought of the images his eyes were seeing. He was cold, yet sweating; but his sweat had no smell. As the monsters filed slowly past him he moved on among the, barely daring to breathe. Below him was a man. He moved among the phantoms, and the phantoms shook his mind, and the phantoms fell back from him. He moved among the forms of nightmare, and the nightmares eyed him warily, for behind him was a long trail of severed claws, and hewn limbs, and chopped appendages of those that had attacked him. He was in ragged clothes, and his face was young; but his hair was turning grey. And Ronnie Wendy followed behind him like a ghost. The man turned, and looked at Ronnie, and then headed on. And the darkness grew less, and the ground fell less steeply, and the rocks were smaller and less craggy. The monsters fell back, watching balefully from their rocks. They were at the edge of the fogs, and before them lay a grey and tumbled land, and beyond it silver mists rose into a roiled wall. The man turned to Ronnie. He seemed to split in two; the one with a young face walked on, drawn by doom, madness and horror in his eyes, his sword broken and eroded by venom lying cast by the wayside. The other stayed, and he was not young, but weathered like a tree, and his eyes were a king’s eyes. “Are you Beren?” said Ronnie. “Beren is dead.” the other answered. “I have pulled you from the shadows. I call you. Return, Ronnie Wendy: the King commands it!” He opened his eyes. Arheled pulled him to his feet. Forest and Travel stared at him with wide eyes. Then Travel hugged him, crying a little. He did not move but stood stiff and solid in her arms. She let go, a little embarrassed. “Are you all right?” she said. “Am I…out?” he said at last in a whisper. “Yes,” said Arheled, gripping his face in both hands, “you are. Ah, Ronnie, Ronnie, battered at once by so many forces; by despair, by the death of your beloved, by dragon and by the madness of the Dreadful Hills. Sleep. Sleep, and rest here in the room of athelas, while I tend you until your hurts are dressed, fallen warrior.” Ronnie sank back on the bed and fell into a deep sleep. “You should go now.” said Arheled gently. “Tell the others he is out of danger, but will need a long hospitalization. It may be he will be ready swifter than my hope, for he is stubborn, and strong as the earth to which he calls; but he will never be the same.” “Well?” demanded Grandmother Lane, when Travel reappeared in the burying ground. “How is he?” It was a full two hours after the battle. “Out of danger, but he needs a while in the hospital.” said Travel. “Which one is he at?” “Arheled’s.” she answered. “Hmph.” the old woman muttered. “I hope old Wayfinder isn’t just trying to keep us from worrying. What exactly did he have?” “Black Breath.” said Travel. The old woman’s wooden face actually paled half a shade. “My God.” she breathed. “What did he do, use athelas?” “Something else happened.” said Forest. “Someone else intervened. It wasn’t Arheled. It was someone very far away. I heard him saying inside Ronnie, ‘The King commands it.” “The King.” repeated Peter Midwinter. “This grows more and more strange. Giants grow back. The Hammer comes out of comics and muttered legends to sit there on the living grass before us, and a King walks again.” He gave himself a shake. “Well, as the old word goes, what cannot be helped must be dreed. How about taking us home, Travel?” Arheled stood above the bed. The boy under the thick quilt lay huddled together, shivering. “How goes it?” said the Man in Brown gently. Ronnie lifted bleared eyes to him. They were swollen, the pouched skin underneath blue as if bruised and mottled with faint spots of blood. “Cold.” he managed to say. “I’m cold.” Arheled put one hand on his brow. The boy relaxed, sprawling limply. “Your body is warm,” he said gravely. “Your heart shivers. Tell me, Ronnie, how is it?” Ronnie’s eyes lifted, once more, wild, filled with pain. “Arheled…''I suffer.” “For that I have no cure.” “I cannot see.” Ronnie’s harsh whisper echoed. “I am trapped in myself. Pain seals me. I see things outside me as a mist. A grey shadow lies between me and your face. The world consists of me, and the pain, and nothing exists outside it.” His eyes grew wild in their swollen lids. “I want to get out! I cannot bear this! I must escape myself! I must get out of myself, leave the pain. But I cannot.” “You are not the only one who has ever suffered.” said Arheled. “You do not walk alone, nor suffer alone.” “Arheled,” whispered Ronnie, “I suffer, and I cannot see beyond it.” His eyes were haunted. Arheled gripped him by the hand and bore him upright. “Come with me.” he said. “You need to move around. You are stiff and cold. The air may help.” “No feel of air breaks the grey mist.” Ronnie murmered. “Those birds…arg! Their voices clash and croak. Arheled, what is wrong with me? Am I still human?” “Oh, very much so.” the other answered placidly. They stepped out of the door, Ronnie holding his cloak close and walking haltingly, like a very old man. “You have no wound on your body, nor any fell splinter. Nor are you fading away. Does that comfort you?” “Not much.” They came to a fallen oak, so old and decayed the brown heart of the tree lay exposed, the sapwood as well as the bark corroded and fallen off, and the remainder had dried hard and tough as wooden stone. Part was already split and sawed into logs. One section lay two feet in the air between notched logs. Arheled picked up an antique bucksaw lying nearby. It had a wooden frame in the shape of an H, two handles slating inward toward the top, held apart by a double bow-shaped spreader in the middle, a thin inch-high blade between the handles at the bottom, held in tension by an ancient rusted metal turnbuckle that screwed together the two top ends. It was a beautiful tool, smoothed and rounded and sturdy; the wood was a deep chestnut-red with oiling and polished with much use. The blade gleamed black with oil. He held it out to Ronnie. “I-I’m hardly up to it.” Ronnie mumbled. “Work calms the body, and calm overflows into the soul.” said Arheled. “There is a power in work and good toil, and a virtue in labor, that redounds upon the laborer. At the very least it’ll get you warm!” “And power giant robots.” said Ronnie with a faint twitch of his old humor. He took the saw, but a spasm came over him and his hands shook. “It’s no good. I’ll only break it.” “Then I’ll fix it.” shrugged Arheled. “To a being like myself, a bucksaw is a child’s toy.” Abashed, Ronnie gripped the saw. All last winter he had cut wood with one very like this. It came back quickly as he positioned himself and began moving it back and forth. At first he did it too rapidly, and then a sudden stab of darkness welled up, and spider-faces, and the saw slipped. “Steady!” rang the voice of Arheled. “Concentrate. You used to be good at this. Don’t clear your mind. Sharpen it. Focus your full will on that saw. Hold it upright and keep the cut straight, and move it slowly.” Ronnie’s brows drew level above his swollen eyes. Fiercely he focused the entire world on that log. The saw slid smoothly. He kept it upright, moving it back and forth, back and forth, quick but steadily. Slow yourself down. Don’t push too hard or you upset the angle. Slowly the blade sank into the wood, and pinkish dust began to fall like snow. When the saw was all but an inch through, he pulled it out and stamped on the log. It dropped to the ground, a neat faggot. “Keep going.” said Arheled. Ronnie rested, then began on another log. It was amazing how the steady hard labour wore down and smoothed out his mind; as if it had tied itself up in knots like a cramped muscle, and massage had relaxed it. He was even able to smile when Arheled said they were having cake and ice cream after lunch. He stopped again to rest. Arheled came up and found him in a stiff crouch, eyes wide and bleary, tears oozing down. “It is not good to allow your mind to wander.” said Arheled. “You.” whispered Ronnie. “You are ''venda. What do you know of love? What do you know of our sufferings?” “I have watched the world of men since first they rose to walk upon it.” answered Arheled. “I bear in my memory ten thousand million sufferings, some of which I was able to assist, most of which I had to watch in vain. You saw your loved one die—I have seen uncounted tears of maidens murdered maidens known, whom I held dear as I hold many, seen them slaughtered and me helpless, held in place by fearsome duty. Which is greater, Ronnie, to watch one girl die, or many die, not once, but many times? What do you know of my sorrow, Ronnie, child of the Road? What do you know of suffering like mine?” Ronnie lifted his head. There was a startled look in his eyes, as one who has suddenly learned that one high and lofty was once in his position. “My apologies.” he said in a weary voice, getting up. “I forget…I am not the only person who ever lived.” “Nor the only fish in the sea.” Arheled said whimsically. Ronnie gave him a sour half-smile as he turned to the saw. Arheled kept him sawing all day, until Ronnie got so tired even resting didn’t help. Only then did his strange healer allow him to return to bed, and when Arheled had cast sleep upon him he slept all night. The next day he asked, “How long have I been here?” “Ah, there is a world outside you, then!” smiled Arheled. “You have slept for a week, and that was two days ago. It is now mid-November.” “November…and I still don’t know what the Grapevine points to. Or the Oak. Is the Grapevine a sign of the Lost Cannon?” “The Cannon,” said Arheled, “is not important. It is what comes out of it that is important.” “I don’t get it.” “Oh , you will, when you find it.” the other answered. “But in the meantime, you’re still recovering, and there’s wood to cut.” Ronnie looked thoughtful all morning. That noon, after lunch, he said, “Sir, may I check out?” “You are sure you have recovered?” sad Arheled mildly. “I want to be out there doing something.” “Yet I had to send you to sleep last night.” his master said. “Very well. It may be oversoon, but I will risk it.” He gave Ronnie a bottle of children’s vitamins, shaped like little red and purple and yellow animals: he remembered them from his own childhood, and smiled. “If you cannot sleep, or dreams and lamentations oppress you, take up to three, but never more in any dose.” Ronnie bowed. “Arheled, my debt to you can never be paid.” “Yet I will ask for payment in the end, when I myself am in dire need; though the payment be everything that you possess.” “When he walks up from the South, I will be there.” said Ronnie. Back to Arheled